RFI Statement on USCIRF Reauthorization

May 25, 2022, Washington, D.C. – Ahead of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee mark-up of the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2022 (S. 3895), the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) issued the following statement:

“RFI strongly supports this legislation because it would reauthorize USCIRF with the same laser-focused mandate Congress gave USCIRF through the bipartisan International Religious Freedom Act of 1998: to report and make policy recommendations on violations of religious freedom to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. The past five laws that reauthorized USCIRF were bipartisan and faithful to the original mandate, thus enabling USCIRF to focus the State Department on religious freedom violations. When the United States advances religious freedom, it saves the lives of persecuted people around the world and makes America safer. Diluting USCIRF’s mandate would be contrary to 23 years of bipartisan statutory letter and intent.”

RFI President Dr. Thomas F. Farr served for 28 years in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Foreign Service. In 1999, he became the first director of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, which the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 created.

The Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) works to secure religious freedom for everyone, everywhere. RFI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C.